Baking with Grandma

My grandma, the one who cooked dinner to death, was a fabulous baker. She was also brilliant and scientific and completely unusual for a woman her age. She even had a Master's Degree in Math from Harvard. Technically she went to Radcliffe (the women's school), but from my understanding Radcliffe didn't have a math program, and her diploma says Harvard. Anyhow, Grandma taught me how to bake. Grandma is probably the reason I passed Organic Chemistry lab. She taught me how to measure precisely.

For example, I am simply unable to measure flour now without carefully scooping it into the measuring cup with a spoon and then leveling it off with a knife. I just know if I were to scoop in the measuring cup into the flour container it would pack in and I would get more than exactly the amount needed. And if I don't level it off with a knife then it won't be exact. I may let my OCD tendencies run wild while baking.

Grandma also showed me neat things like measuring butter by displacement. First you fill a 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup about half full with water. It doesn't really matter how full with water as long as there's more than the amount you want to measure. Make sure you know how much water is in the measuring cup and then add the butter, or oleo, or Crisco, until the water in the measuring cup reaches however much butter you want more in the cup. For example if you start with 1 cup of water and you want 1/2 cup of butter then you scoop the butter in until the water level hits 1 1/2 cups. It's pretty easy and an interesting way to teach kids about physical properties of fluid dynamics. (it's the only way I would understand something like that.)

Grandma also let us do something forbidden in my mom's house. She let us lick the beaters. Mom would yell about salmonella, but Grandma licked the beaters. I had no idea about licking beaters or tasting batter before Grandma let me bake cookies at the cottage.

Grandma also taught me to let my cookies cool on cut up paper bags. Call me crazy, but cooling the cookies on paper bags does something special to them. This year, I've been using cloth bags for groceries, so I don't have the overabundance of paper grocery bags I usually have at Christmas. I also have a limited amount of counter space, and these really cool stacking cooling racks. So for the first time since I started, the Christmas cookies will be air cooled on racks.

Grandma died at the ripe old age of 91 the summer before I met my husband. I'm grateful that she showed me how to bake and I think of her every time I pull out my trusty kitchen aid mixer.

Just Like Grandma Used to Make

It's Monday night again. And again the dilemma of what to make for dinner that would be ready between getting off work and Spin class. Again the idea of the crock pot comes to mind. Somewhat bolstered by last Monday's attempt, I decided to give it another shot.

According to The Joy of Cooking, a general rule of thumb is "estimate 2 hours on low or 1 hour on high in a slow cooker for every 30 minutes of cooking time in the original recipe." SO, not finding any really interesting recipes that didn't contain a can of cream of mushroom soup (the stuff is fairly unnatural) or a lot of sour cream, I tried to think of recipes that have long cooking times. I tried to think of foods that were cooked to death.

As an aside, the Brain has requested a reprieve from soup. So although I love soup and I'm fairly sure that chili would work in the slow cooker, I won't be making soup until January.

The number one food cooked to death in my mind is Pot Roast.

Now my mother cooked Pot Roast to death, but she sort of mummified it. Don't get me wrong, my mother can make all sorts of yummy and delicious things. She makes a Rice Bavarian that us kids fight over. Her fruitcake is eaten straight from the freezer. For birthdays, when we could choose what we wanted for dinner, 5 times a year she would roll out ravioli from scratch. My brother #3's birthday is 2 days before mine so she wouldn't make ravioli twice in two days. In the '70s she would throw elaborate dinner parties, serving Fondue, Chinese Food, and Chicken Cordon Blue. But my mother cannot cook Pot Roast. She sort of fried it for a couple hours and then used the electric carving knife to cut it into chunks. The potatoes and carrots were delicious and caramelized, but us kids nicknamed the Pot Roast "Hockey Puck Pot Roast".

It wasn't until after I'd moved out and after my dad's mom died that I realized that the delicious meat chunks floating in gravy that Grandma cooked were also Pot Roast. My Grandma was a terrific woman. She spoke with a New England accent so that when we'd be at her cottage on Lake Huron she's say things like, "the lake is cahm today." Grandma had infinite patience with me, she kept a vat of Noxzema to cover my sunburns, she brilliantly answered every question I ever had, and she really wasn't the best cook. [She could definitely bake chocolate chip cookies, but I'll save that story for another day.] She overcooked most of her vegetables and sometimes mixed them with mashed potatoes. She stuffed her turkey with ground beef. But, somehow, cooking the living daylights out of Pot Roast really worked. So I followed her example.

This morning I put the Pot Roast in the crock pot, set the timer for 8 hours, and hoped. It fell apart. There was too much gravy. It was EXACTLY like Grandma's! Well, Grandma used a packet and a half of French Onion Soup mix, but that's just a little too icky for me. I'm not a huge fan of processed food. So I shredded the meat and made half the cooking liquid into gravy, mixed it together and went off to spin. I got home and made some mashed potatoes as the Brain walked in and for once, the slow cooker worked it's magic for us.

Now I just need to think of another food that's cooked to death for next week...

Pot Roast

original recipe by Me (inspired by Grandma, Elizabeth Flint Uicker)

1 tsp olive oil

1 (3-pound) boneless chuck roast

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 large onion sliced

1 cup red wine

4 garlic cloves minced

4 cups beef broth*

1 bay leaf

2 tsp flour

1 cup water

Drizzle olive oil in large skillet. Sprinkle chuck roast with salt and pepper and sear on all sides. Place chuck roast in crock pot. Place sliced onions and minced garlic on top of roast. Pour in wine and broth. Add bay leaf. Cook on low for 8 hours. Pull roast apart. Pour cooking liquids into saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce by half. Mix water and flour in small bowl and add to cooking juices to make gravy. Add roast to gravy and serve over mashed potatoes.

* Next time I would definitely reduce this to 2 cups.